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Hello
I’m new to racing and I’d be grateful if someone could offer some advice on how to study form.
For example:
1) Any books that could be recommended?
2) Any resources – Racing Post, Raceform, Pro Form etc
3) Any websites / youtube channels
Many thanks
Welcome urbanhermit. There is some base level stuff here http://www.greatbritishracing.com/guide-to-racing/guides/#ele2atb6K7WEzHjR.97
Maybe that will prove too basic. If so, if you list your level of experience so far, the guys on here will be better able to help you.
Purely from personal curiosity re recruits to the sport, would you mind saying what age you are? Feel free to tell me to mind my own business.
All the best
JoeHi Joe
Thanks for taking the time to respond to my message and also, for posting that link – very helpful.
I’m 41 and no very little about horses. I’ve become interested in finding out more about racing due to starting to trade on Betair.
Cheers,
Chris
Thanks, Chris. There are people on here much more knowledgeable than I am on form study (I tend to latch on to individual horses, for a variety of reasons). Doubtless a few will chip in to help once they know just what you want
Welcome aboard
Just a general suggestion.
I don’t buy any form books. The vast majority of the racing books I have read would be of historical interest only.
I purchase the Racing Post at weekends and for Festivals (Cheltenham etc.). I also subscribe to RUK. Both to my eyes are expensive.
The most important thing I would suggest is to try and watch as many races as possible and form your own opinions. You don’t need to have RUK or ATR as you can watch the replays for free. Obviously, you cannot watch all the races so initially maybe concentrate on one area, perhaps 2yo’s on the Flat or juvenile hurdlers for National Hunt. Both of those areas have been well covered on this forum. Make a list of some horses you think show some signs of promise and see how they progress. You don’t have to bet on them.
Just keep building your knowledge base and hopefully results will come. It is important to remember everyone will have losing runs.
Good luck
I have been following Racing for more than 30 years.
I don’t buy any racing form or newspapers.
I simply use the online sites for the racecards and to reference the results of previous races. I prefer the way the cards are laid out on the At The Races website and their guide to the future form of a certain race is helpful, although I find it misleading at times and the quality of any winning form needs delved into further to gauge the strength.
I bet on the Flat in the main, mostly 2yo and 3yo races and any high level racing.
The best advice I could give would be to avoid short priced favourites and try to stick to one or two bets a day.
Learn the layouts of a few tracks and identify which sort of horses tend to run well there. Trying to work out in your mind how a race is likely to be run beforehand can help identify horses who may benefit from it and those who may be inconvenienced by it.
A good example was on Sunday at York, where sprinter Danzeno was dropping in class. He held an 11 lbs advantage on Nameitwhatyoulike on the ratings and was a warm favourite. However I went against him with the Bryan Smart horse.
The logic was that Danzeno tends to be slowly away, while Nameitwhatyoulike was always going to try to make all. I felt that he could poach a few lengths from Danzeno at the start and at York I have seen a shed load of horses who don’t quite catch the front runner in 6F races.
The race panned out exactly as I had imagined and Danzeno couldn’t make up the ground.
Of course it doesn’t always pan out, particularly not to the letter as it did today but visualising how the race should form itself based on previous running tendencies can help identify potential scenarios for the horse you fancy and you can decide if it will go the way that suits the horse best.
Best to learn a lot about a little number of races, than know a little about a lot of races on any given day.
It’s a tough game and only hard work will give you the edge.
Good luck.
Thanks for the good crack. Time for me to move on. Be lucky.
Form study? A complete waste of time. Just follow Goreisking and his amazing ability to pick out short-priced favourites, you can’t possibly go wrong.
Patience is a very useful asset to a punter. There is so much dirge out there on a daily basis and it is very easy to be drawn into chasing losses. Don’t do it.
It should be a given to keep a record of all your bets.
I would echo the sentiments about short prices. If you play level stakes on three 2/1 shots then two of the three have to win to produce a profit. That might sound relatively easy to a beginner but in reality it isn’t.
Some good advice so far Urbanhermit.
Really depends on how much time you’ve got and what you’re after.
Do you want to make an overall profit or is it just a bit of fun?If you’re after profit then knowing odds as percentages helps enormously in finding value bets/profit.
eg.
You probably know that a toss of a fair coin has a 50% chance, fair Evens of coming down heads or tails.
Therefore, any horse a punter believes has a 50% chance of winning, he/she should only back it if the available odds are better than Evens. Punters should also know 3/1 = 25%, 9/1 = 10%, 16/1 = 6%, 100/1 = 1% and all the others in between.Alongside my own racing knowledge, I find Timeform Race Passes enables me to pinpoint who the best (value) bet/s should be… That’s if you’ve got enough money to invest in a good form book and willing to put the work in.
Tips in working races out:
Pay particular attention to trainers in/out of form and which horse/s the likely pace in the race will probably suit.
Then there’s the obvious things, going and race distance (speed and stamina).
Less obvious things, like valid excuses – horses that could not run well due to circumstances or ran better than their finishing position suggests.Value Is EverythingI think it is impossible now to cover ALL racing from a form point of view, even though it is September we are still getting evening racing so 3 or more meetings a day and even more at the weekends.
Stick to one genre and and just concentrate on that rather than try and follow it all.
Hello again.
I just wanted to thank everyone for taking the time to respond.
The replies are both really helpful and informative.
Thank you.
Welcome to the sport urbanhermit
I remember when I first started buying a book by Mark Coton who was the original Pricewise
‘Value Betting’Very helpful especially in identifying races to bet in
Been a horse racing fan and been betting on horses for 25 years now! I’d like to think in that time I’ve acquired a bit of knowledge of the game….
That said….something that no-one seems to have mentioned yet but the part of betting that I think is more important than any other, is purely and simply ‘LUCK’!
For me luck plays a major part….if your luck is in then make hay while the sun shines and if your luck is out hold back a little…you can spend an hour looking at a race while you’re on a bad run…you can work to handicap ratings….work out the pace in the race and how you think it will pan out…you can look for course form, what acts on the going, trainers in form, jockeys in form, if the horse wins at that time of the year, if it’s slipped back down to a winning mark, a pattern in it’s historic form…etc, etc, etc…..and you can be made to look completely stupid as it turns out nothing like and you’re left scratching your head….
On the other side of the coin….when in a purple patch (all gamblers will have them) you can walk in a bookies, look up at a screen where a race is 60 seconds from setting off….simply look at 2 horses that are shortening, do a forecast and end up nailing it!
I like nothing better than watching plenty of racing though and forming opinions from what you see with your own eyes….you can read race reports and sometimes wonder if you were watching a different race to whoever wrote it…..also think ground and trainer form is massive and at some particular places, course form…
Another thing I like to do is keep a running total of ups and downs over the course of the year….I’m no big punter, just more casual and small stakes after being a bit daft in my younger years…with a bit more discipline with experience and getting older though I’ve managed to not do too bad since keeping records…I started in 2013 (-£399)….2014 (-£283)….2015 (+190)…and up to date this year so far…2016 (+955)…
Going back to what I mentioned earlier….the main thing I do is base my betting around what kind of run I’m in and how I feel my luck is….
I thought it might be nice to bump this thread.
It’s just under a year since I joined these forums and I would like to share my journey with you.
My first post was about asking how to study form and since that post, I’m proud to say that I’ve become more interested in racing.
Whilst my main focus has been on trading the horse racing markets on Betfair, I’ve become a bit of a racing geek in that I spend A LOT of my spare time watching replays and seeing how the running compares to the previews in the ProForm Daily guides.
I don’t visit these forums as often as I should, but I wanted to say thank you for the users who post here – even in 2017, I hope I am proof that racing can still attract newcomers to the sport.
Urbanhermit
<p abp=”458″>I thought it might be nice to bump this thread.
<p abp=”459″>It’s just under a year since I joined these forums and I would like to share my journey with you.
<p abp=”460″>My first post was about asking how to study form and since that post, I’m proud to say that I’ve become more interested in racing.
<p abp=”461″>Whilst my main focus has been on trading the horse racing markets on Betfair, I’ve become a bit of a racing geek in that I spend A LOT of my spare time watching replays and seeing how the running compares to the previews in the ProForm Daily guides.
<p abp=”462″>I don’t visit these forums as often as I should, but I wanted to say thank you for the users who post here – even in 2017, I hope I am proof that racing can still attract newcomers to the sport.
<p abp=”463″>Urbanhermit
I wasn’t on here when you first posted but had I been, the advice would have been to spend a lot of time studying form and above all, have a really good memory.
I wasn’t on here when you first posted but had I been, the advice would have been to spend a lot of time studying form and above all, have a really good memory
Hi Kingbenitch,
Sadly, my memory is as about as useful as a chocolate teapot so I store everything in excel and back it up.
As you rightly say, studying form is the key.
One of the books I purchased was Enemy Number One by Patrick Veitch – love him or hate him, you can’t argue he is not a grafter and testament to that is the 16 hour days he does.
Urbanhermit, good to hear from you.
How long did it take you to learn to read races? I know you’ll still bel earning to some extent (we all are) but I’m particularly interested in how you progressed in understanding which horses travelled well, which looked under pressure, which were keen, how their action was on different ground etc.
Mainly I’m trying to grasp how long it would take a newcomer to read a race when the obvious visual clues are not there. By this I mean that an experienced race-reader would know a horse that is under pressure before the jockey resorted to vigorous action. The reader would also spot when a horse is travelling well even though to the less experienced eye it appeared to be going no differently to many of its rivals. Again, a horse who is obviously keen but its enthusiasm is being disguised perhaps by a jockey with particularly good hands or by the fact that it hasn’t yet began pulling but is definitely the type.
All the best
Joe
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